Belt/disc sanders are well known in the prior art. They have a belt table with a motor-driven shaft at one end and an idler wheel at the other. The idler wheel is adjustable towards and away from the driving shaft so that an endless loop sanding belt can be placed over the drive shaft and the idler wheel. The idler wheel is then adjusted away from the drive shaft to tighten the belt to a proper tension. On one end of the shaft driving the sanding belt is a plate which has a circular sandpaper disc placed thereon for a circular disc sander. Thus both the belt sander and the disc sander are driven by a common motor.
In the prior art, a dust collector is placed around and encompasses the end of the belt table in which the drive shaft is located. Thus the sanding belt passes into and under the cover of the dust collector and carries into it dust generated by the sanding operation. A vacuum system is connected to the essentially C-shaped dust collector which encompasses the one end of the belt and suctions the dust out of the collector. To protect the dust collector and provide support for the workpiece, an end stop is mounted to the belt bed in front of the dust collector. It is an elongated rectangular plate whose lower edge is spaced just above the sanding belt to allow the dust to pass under. The end stop supports the workpiece being sanded so that it does not engage the dust collector and damage it. The problem with this type of arrangement, of course, is twofold. First, all of the dust being generated by the sanding operation does not pass under the end stop and the end stop itself has a tendency to prevent some of the dust from entering the dust collector. In addition, if one wishes to sand a workpiece longer than the sanding belt bed, the dust collector is in the way as well as the end stop and thus prevents a long workpiece from being sanded. In addition, in the prior art, there is no dust collector associated with the disc sander.
The present invention overcomes the disadvantages of the prior art by providing a dust collector for the belt sander that is formed in two sections, an upper section and a lower section. The upper section is easily detachable from the lower section along with the end stop such that workpieces that are longer than the belt bed can be sanded with no interference from the dust collector. The lower half of the dust collector is still surrounding the lower end of the belt and is still removing dust by a vacuum system. In addition, in the present invention the end stop is formed with a plurality of spaced U-shaped orifices that extend downwardly toward the belt. The open end of the U merges with the lower edge of the elongated rectangular plate to form a comb-like structure through which greater amounts of dust can pass to the dust collector.
The lower section of the dust collector for the belt bed has its upper flat surface just below the surface of the sanding belt so that an elongated workpiece being sanded will not touch the lower section of the dust collector. The upper section has two L-shaped latching members extending downwardly from a mating flat surface which extend into orifices in the top flat surface of the lower section. A single screw attaches the upper forward end of the upper section to the end stop. Another bolt attaches the end stop to the belt bed such that the end stop can be removed by one bolt from the belt bed and the entire top section of the dust collector plus the end plate be removed simultaneously from the sander.
In addition, the present invention has a dust collector associated with the disc sander and which encompasses the entire back side of the disc sander and the lower front side so that essentially only the front upper half of the disc sander is exposed for sanding. A vacuum attachment orifice is formed in the lower front section of the dust collector so that dust generated by the disc sanding operation can be removed from the dust collector.
Thus it is an object of the present invention to provide a belt/disc sander having a dust collection system for both the belt sander and the disc sander.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide a belt/disc sander that has a dust collection system for the belt sander that is formed in two sections so that the upper section can be removed and a workpiece longer than the belt bed can be sanded since it can extend beyond either end of the belt sander.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a belt/disc sander in which an end stop is associated with the upper section of the dust collector and which is formed with a comb-like structure to allow a greater amount of dust generated by the sanding operation to pass into the collector.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a belt/disc sander which has a dust collector associated with the disc sander and which collector encompasses the upper and lower rear portions of the disc sander and the lower half of the front portion, thereby enabling sanding to take place only on the upper half of the sanding disc.